Welcome to Day 28 of the 30 Days to Less of a Hot Mess Challenge! We’re decluttering, reorganizing and taking a fresh breath of air to create a home we love. If this is your first time joining the challenge, you may want to start here at the beginning. Affiliate links used for your convenience.
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Beyond kids’ toys, another area of the home that tends to need a lot of attention is kids’ clothes organization. Over the years I’ve put several organizing ideas into place that help keep the chaos to a minimum. I’ve also worked hard to find a good hand-me-down system, since my 2 girls have birthdays only 6 days apart. I hope these help keep the chaos to a minimum at your house too!
5 Top Tips for Kids Clothes Organization
1. Keep It Where They Can Reach It.
One reason we installed the closet system in my oldest daughter’s closet is that I wanted a spot for her clothes that she could reach. Her underwear and socks are in the closet drawer she can access easily.
She has a lower hanging rod for her dresses and nicer shirts. Her pants and t-shirts live in the lower dresser drawers where she can reach them. It’s wonderful that she can dress herself AND put away her laundry.
2. Divide and conquer!
About a year ago I bought drawer dividers for our dressers, and they have been wonderful in my girls’ rooms. Instead of a jumbled mess in their drawers, each piece of clothing now has its own section. It keeps everything in the right place, and we’re no longer losing clothes in the back of the drawer.
The Skubb Drawer Organizers from IKEA // How to Get Organized with IKEA
3. Set Out Their Clothes for the Week.
If you really want to make life easy, and your child can dress herself, set up a Days of the Week Closet Organizer in her closet so she can get up and put her own clothes on each day.
Days of the Week Closet Organizer (here and here)
4. Keep Storage Out of Reach.
I know my daughter. She’s a sentimentalist to the core! If she finds her old baby clothes (or just last year’s summer clothes), she’ll pull them out and reminisce over them in no time. I keep the old clothes I’m saving for any potential future children up high on the closet shelves, out of the way and out of reach.
5. Create a System for Hand-me-Downs.
This one is probably my biggest hurdle when it comes to kids’ clothing. (Well, besides curbing my spending habits, since it’s hard not to buy every cute little thing for my girls!) I like to sell some clothes, donate some clothes and keep some clothes after each season. I recently had to tackle my younger daughter’s closet, because it was overflowing with old, too-small clothes I had just tossed in there.
Here’s the thing. I’m so grateful I kept my oldest daughter’s clothes. I saved a lot of them! All along I kept thinking it was highly unlikely I’d ever have another daughter (I’m the oldest of 6 kids and the only girl), and it was SUPER unlikely I’d have another daughter born in the same season. So I was sure saving her baby clothes would be a waste of time. Well, lo and behold, my second daughter’s birthday is 6 days before my oldest daughter’s, and we have used the heck out of those hand-me-downs! So if you have the space and plan to have more children, I encourage you to save the best ones.
My Rules for Hand-Me-Downs
I sort my clothes into 3 categories:
- The Trash Pile. Clothes that are stained or have holes go in the trash. I might give away something that’s only lightly stained, or even keep it as the future child’s run-around-the-house play clothes. But heavily stained or torn clothes say goodbye.
- Consignment Sale Pile. Clothes I didn’t love or use very much go to the consignment sale. I’m pretty ruthless with this category. Clothes lose a lot of value sitting in a bin up in a closet for years, so if I’m not 100% sure I LOVE the outfit, it gets sold. I also tend to sell something if it has already been worn by 2 children and it’s an older item. Chances are, by the time it comes out of a bin for another child, we won’t want to wear it. Might as well sell it and recoup a little money. Selling their clothes helps earn money to buy the next season’s clothes. I absolutely love selling my kids’ clothes at our local consignment sale. I encourage you to find a high-quality one in your area.
- The Keep Pile. The clothes I do keep to pass along are my very, very favorites! I’ve found I enjoy buying new clothes for the next child, so I use my favorite pieces from the first kid and then buy new clothes for the second.
- Tip: One thing I almost always save, unless they’re just torn up, is pajamas. Those things are expensive, and honestly, who cares if they’re a little stained or worn? Nobody sees them except the family at bedtime.
Once I’ve chosen my favorite clothes, I store them in plastic tubs in a closet. I used to store them in the attic, but I found it made them yellow quickly. Keeping the keep pile small lets me store everything indoors.
The Messy Work: Choose one child’s room and get to decluttering! Remove the too-small clothes and set up an organized system for the clothes they can wear and use. Remember to keep their clothing where they can reach it!
Messily yours, Laura
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